Bradford Shooting Ground 1/10/22

Today was what I call the first shoot of the off-season for me. The South West Single Barrel Inter-counties is tomorrow, but I’m not involved in the team for that. I’ll still be there though to see what happens and report on it. I haven’t planned to go to any bigger events that might be happening as the season draws to a close either.

Perhaps that’s a good thing, as today was a very poor day at the office - 98/281. I can’t blame the weather, although the wind was affecting the targets significantly, and it was like shooting ABT sometimes.

No rain here!

The turnout was low as you can see from the scoreboard, but that’s probably because of the weather forecast being rough (which was wrong!) and the fact that there’s a DTL running alongside the Single Barrel tomorrow. Shooting two days in a row is getting more and more difficult to afford!

Conditions favoured those more experienced with ABT, as demonstrated by a surprise visit from Ian Moore. He said he’d worked this morning and didn’t have aything else to do, so he decided to shoot today as a warm up for Universal Trench at Brook Bank tomorrow, and use up some “cheap” cartridges he won recently. They were something called Hull Sovereigns (eeesh!), and must have been alright because he finished up top of the board with a 100/297!

That’s a lot of firepower to deploy on DTL targets! However, he had competition in the “who can make the best smoke clouds” contest from Darren Vicary and Paul Gorrett. Both are on Fiocchi Fblacks, and I can confrm without a shadow of doubt that they pattern extremely well through an Invictus III like mine (Darren’s), and a K80 Pro-rib (Paul’s).

In fact, this is only the third time Paul has shot his Krieghoff since buying it, and it suits him well. The third round was a bit disappointing, but the rest was strong and he finished on 98/289.

Richard Ryan was joining in the smoke clouds contest with Eley Superbs through his Perazzi, and at the halfway stage he was on the perfect 50/150. But then, he experienced what I have many times in the quest for the perfect score – the third round is when the pressure cooker starts boiling! You aren’t always aware of how tense you’re getting, and the head interferes if you let it. That’s exactly what happened, and a whole one got away from him. He recovered well though with a solid 25/73, and finished on 99/295.

Colin Chidley, another solid shooter who likes his ABT, was next on 98/291.

Not my best work, but at least the end was good!

Well, that’s all I have to say on today’s shooting, so now I would like to share a few items of exciting news with you!

First – I am now officially accepting clients! All the events that were important have happened, so now I have a lot more flexibility. I’ve re-worked my website over at https://www.robdietzshooting.com, and it’s looking pretty good even if I say so myself! At the moment, I’m accepting bookings from it via email, but will probably build a form soon to make the process much more streamlined.

Second – Following on from that, I have my first proper session with a client on October 15th, which has been a long time coming! Both of us are keen to see what can be done, and no doubt I’ll learn as much about teaching as he will about shooting!

Third – I haven’t forgotten about the people who responded to the questionnaire I put out about DTL Masterclasses. It’s a bit tricky to nail down a date at Two Counties, but rest assured that I’m on the case, and it will happen sooner or later!

And lastly, I’ll soon be accepting members into my Shooting Academy Group – once I’ve plucked up the courage to record some videos for it! There will be a monthly charge for membership (starting at £8 a month for now), and it will be my way of passing on what I know about shooting, as well as an easy way for me to keep in touch with members. https://www.robdietzshooting.com has more information on what you can expect from it. (Plans for this have been shelved - I don’t know if I will come back to this).

And now, enjoy your evening, and I’ll be back with a report on the South West Single Barrel Inter-counties very soon!